We moved into our apartment 13 months ago, 6 months ago the complex changed ownership. It's all been fairly downhill since then, parking lots dug up and inaccessible without warning, mechanical diggers parked on sidewalks outside apartments causing major noise and safety issues, mail boxes inaccessible for days at a time without warning, water swtiched off on average once a week again without warning - once for a period of 12 hours. So all in all not great, but the new owners were clearly putting a lot of effort into upgrading the property and we were assured that major repairs and disruption were at an end. So we signed a new 1 year lease (started last month).
Yesterday morning my wife discovered some wet patches on the carpet, maintenance were called and the problem was found to be the water heater in the apartment upstairs, water was leaking into our bathroom water heater closet, then through the walls and underneath the floor in the kitchen and coming up in the dining room. As it was Sunday the company only had one maintenance man on call, he explained that the water heater upstairs would need to be replaced but that he could not do that alone so it would have to wait until the today (Monday).
The maintenance man stated that the water would not get any worse and in fact he had seen much more damage in situations like this. An hour later the water leak situation was worse so we called the maintenance man out again, we asked that the water to the water heater upstairs be switched off and the unit drained. We were told that wasn't possible, because there would still be water in the tank, we tried in vain to explain that as the water heater leaked and emptied it would simply refill and therefore the water leak would be continuous.
Our plea fell on deaf ears, I called the apartment complex office from work and explained the situation, I repeated my request that the water be switched off upstairs, I was told that the maintenance staff would be consulted and the maintenance supervisor advised of the situation. Nothing changed, I tried again repeatedly to contact maintenance (as did my wife), leaving messages requesting that the water upstais be switched off and that their supervisor contact me at work, nobody returned my calls.
It's now 24 hours since the nightmare began, we have water logged floors in every room in the house, my wife was up all night attempting to keep the damage to a minimum: laying down towels, laundering the dirty towels and then repeating the process. We had to move furniture at 4am this morning to prevent further damage to the items.
After chasing the office staff this morning, my wife requested that someone visit the apartment and view the damage for themselves, One of the comments made was 'huh, why didn't they just switch off the water upstairs?'![]()
It's clear that it's going to be days before this issue is resolved, we've been advised that once the water heater upstairs is drained and replaced then staff will set about getting rid of the water in our apartment. In the mean time we have water logged carpets, damaged furniture and as of this morning a kitchen ceiling which is so water damaged it looks very precariious.
The apartment smells badly of stagnant water, the humidity here means that unless we resolve this situation very quickly we are likely to get mold. We have a toddler and it really doesn't seem like a healthy environment for anyone, especially not a young child.
Do we have a case to escape our current lease? We made a simple request repeatedly that would have prevented a lot of the damage, that being the case do we have any leverage to break our lease? Will we need a lawyer to get out of this lease and if so can we sue for damages to pay the legal fees?
The terms of our lease are that if we leave early we are responsible for the full amount of rent until the apartment can be released or until the term of the lease expires whichever is sooner.
Thank you for your time.
vwturbo

